Among the Pines Part 12

"Suppose the Yankees object to your setting up by yourselves, and put your ports under lock and key?"

"They wont do that, and if they do, England will break the blockade."

"We may rap John Bull over the knuckles in that event," I replied.

"Well, suppose you do; what then?"

"Merely, England would not have a s.h.i.+p in six months to carry your cotton. A war with her would ruin the s.h.i.+pping trade of the North. Our marine would seek employment at privateering, and soon sweep every British merchant s.h.i.+p from the ocean. We could afford to give up ten years' trade with you, and to put secession down by force, for the sake of a year's brush with John Bull."

"But, my good friend, where would the British navy be all this while?"

"Asleep. The English haven't a steamer that can catch a Brookhaven schooner. The last war proved that government vessels are no match for privateers."

"Well, well! but the Yankees wont fight."

"Suppose they do. Suppose they shut up your ports, and leave you with your cotton and turpentine unsold? You raise scarcely any thing else--what would you eat?"

"We would turn our cotton fields into corn and wheat. Turpentine-makers, of course, would suffer."

"Then why are not _you_ a Union man?"

"My friend, I have nearly three hundred mouths to feed. I depend on the sale of my crop to give them food. If our ports are closed, I cannot do it--they will starve, and I be ruined. But sooner than submit to the domination of the cursed Yankees, I will see my negroes starving, and my child a beggar!"

At this point in the conversation we arrived at the negro shanty where the sick child was. Dismounting, the Colonel and I entered.

The cabin was almost a counterpart of the "Mills House," described in the previous chapter, but it had a plank flooring, and was scrupulously neat and clean. The logs were stripped of bark, and whitewashed. A bright, cheerful fire was blazing on the hearth, and an air of rude comfort pervaded the whole interior. On a low bed in the farther corner of the room lay the sick child. He was a boy of about twelve years, and evidently in the last stages of consumption. By his side, bending over him as if to catch his almost inaudible words, sat a tidy, youthful-looking colored woman, his mother, and the wife of the negro we had met at the "still." Playing on the floor, was a younger child, perhaps five years old, but while the faces of the mother and the sick lad were of the hue of charcoal, _his_ skin by a process well understood at the South, had been bleached to a bright yellow.

The woman took no notice of our entrance, but the little fellow ran to the Colonel and caught hold of the skirts of his coat in a free-and-easy way, saying, "Ole ma.s.sa, you got suffin' for d.i.c.ky?"

"No, you little nig," replied the Colonel, patting his woolly head as I might have done a white child's, "d.i.c.ky isn't a good boy."

"Yas, I is," said the little darky; "you'se ugly ole ma.s.sa to gib nuffin' to d.i.c.k."

Aroused by the Colonel's voice, the woman turned toward us. Her eyes were swollen, and her face bore traces of deep emotion.

"Oh ma.s.sa!" she said, "de chile am dyin'! It'm all along ob his workin'

in de swamp--no _man_ orter work dar, let alone a chile like dis."

"Do you think he is dying, Rosy?" asked the Colonel, approaching the bed-side.

"Sh.o.r.e, ma.s.sa, he'm gwine fa.s.s. Look at 'im."

The boy had dwindled to a skeleton, and the skin lay on his face in crimpled folds, like a mask of black c.r.a.pe. His eyes were fixed, and he was evidently going.

"Don't you know ma.s.sa, my boy?" said the Colonel, taking his hand tenderly in his.

The child's lips slightly moved, but I could hear no sound. The Colonel put his ear down to him for a moment, then, turning to me, said:

"He _is_ dying. Will you be so good as to step to the house and ask Madam P---- here, and please tell Jim to go for Junius and the old man."

I returned in a short while with the lady, but found the boy's father and "the old man"--the darky preacher of the plantation--there before us. The preacher was a venerable old negro, much bowed by years, and with thin wool as white as snow. When we entered, he was bending over the dying boy, but shortly turning to my host, said:

"Ma.s.sa, de blessed Lord am callin' for de chile--shall we pray?"

The Colonel nodded a.s.sent, and we all, blacks and whites, knelt down on the floor, while the old preacher made a short, heart-touching prayer.

It was a simple, humble acknowledgment of the dependence of the creature on the Creator--of His right to give and to take away, and was uttered in a free, conversational tone, as if long communion with his Maker had placed the old negro on a footing of friendly familiarity with Him, and given the black slave the right to talk with the Deity as one man talks with another.

As we rose from our knees my host said to me, "It is _my_ duty to stay here, but I will not detain _you_. Jim will show you over the plantation. I will join you at the house when this is over." The scene was a painful one, and I gladly availed myself of the Colonel's suggestion.

Mounting our horses, Jim and I rode off to the negro house where Scip was staying.

Scip was not at the cabin, and the old negro woman told us he had been away for several hours.

"Reckon he'll be 'way all day, sar," said Jim, as we turned our horses to go.

"He ought to be resting against the ride of to-morrow. Where has he gone?"

"Dunno, sar, but reckon he'm gwine to fine Sam."

"Sam? Oh, he's the runaway the Colonel has advertised."

"Yas, sar, he'm 'way now more'n a monfh."

"How can Scip find him?"

"Dunno, sar. Scipio know most ebery ting--reckon he'll track him. He know him well, and Sam'll c.u.m back ef he say he orter."

"Where do you think Sam is?"

"P'raps in de swamp."

"Where is the swamp?"

"'Bout ten mile from har."

"Oh, yes! the s.h.i.+ngles are cut there. I should think a runaway would be discovered where so many men are at work."

"No, ma.s.sa, dar'm places dar whar de ole debble cudn't fine him, nor de dogs nudder."

"I thought the bloodhounds would track a man anywhere."

"Not fru de water, ma.s.sa; dey lose de scent in de swamp."

"But how can a man live there--how get food?"

"De darkies dat work dar take 'em nuff."

"Then the other negroes know where the runaways are; don't they sometimes betray them?"